Connecticut Is A Great Place to Have a Baby

A new WalletHub study is here, and Connecticut actually did really well…as in top 5 well.

The study looked at all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) and ranked them best to worst place to have a baby. The study took into account four factors: cost, healthcare, baby-friendliness and family-friendliness.

For cost, the researchers looked at hospital c-section delivery charges, hospital conventional-delivery charges, average cost of annual early child care, and average health insurance premiums.

For healthcare, they looked at the infant mortality rate, maternity mortality rate, rate of preemies, share of children with all necessary vaccines, quality of womens’ hospitals, pediatric neonatology facilities, midwives and OBGYNs per capita, fertility clinics per capita, and the mPINC (maternity practices in infant nutrition and care) survey.

For baby-friendliness they looked at paternal-leave policies, mom groups per capita, child-care centers per capita, and share of nationally accredited child care centers.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Abi, get on with it. We want to see Connecticut’s score!

So here we go: we ranked 4th out of 51 overall! That included 42nd for cost, 9th for healthcare, 3rd for baby-friendliness, and 9th for family-friendliness. That’s pretty good!

The only three states that beat us were #1 Vermont (40th, 1st, 4th, 3rd), #2 Minnesota (25th, 2nd, 5th, 4th), and #3 New Hampshire (10th, 4th, 28th, 2nd). And the top 10 rounded out with #5 North Dakota, #6 Massachusetts, #7 Maine, #8 Utah, #9 Iowa, and #10 Nebraska.

The bottom 10 rounded out with #41 Arizona, #42 Arkansas, #43 New Mexico, #44 Georgia, #45 Florida, #46 South Carolina, #47 Alabama, #48 West Virginia, #49 Nevada, #50 Louisiana, #51 Mississippi (which surprisingly earned #1 for cost, but that’s most likely because it’s one of the poorest states in America).

In addition to our proud #4 spot, we get a little check on our ego with also earning the 4th highest annual infant care cost (anyone who’s ever had a kid in this state can vouch for that).

Overall, the Northeast and the Midwest ranked best, and the South ranked the worst in general.

As much as we tease our little state, it’s a great place to not only have a baby, but to raise a family.